How Discovered People built a $2.84M year with one salesperson

Discovered People is a Sydney tech recruitment agency that hit the wall most new agencies hit: growing a delivery team without burning the margin that funds the growth.

The problem with local delivery hires

As a new player, Discovered People could not attract experienced local consultants, so they hired junior. That decision cost twice: delivery consultants at over $100,000 a year who could not yet return a decent profit per head, and a salesperson whose day was eaten by managing them instead of talking to clients.

• Junior local hires at $100k+ per annum, underperforming on return
• Heavy management load on the one person who could win new business
• New client acquisition declining while overhead grew

Experienced offshore recruiters instead of junior local ones

Discovered People flipped the model: instead of paying local-junior prices for local-junior output, they hired experienced recruiters in the Philippines with domain-specific expertise, managed end to end.

• Experienced delivery from day one, not a training project
• Profit per head jumped as the cost base dropped
• The salesperson got their day back for clients and BD

The results

• Over $2.84 million billed in FY2023 with a single salesperson
• More placements from an experienced delivery team
• Materially better return on investment per head
• Enough operational headroom to expand into new markets